Your medical records?

[British Viking]

What happens to your medical records after you've popped off?

Are they stored somewhere or destroyed after a while?

Not wanting to soiund morbid in any way, but just thought it might be interesting and reveal some family traits if they were available to peruse?

[Sue Mackay]

Mine have been lost three times in my life time |laugh1|

[Nicolina]

and I ended up with my mother's. We were both E. W****** and the consultant never even bothered to check the christian name or even age, just insisted that I had never had certain illnesses, thereby calling me a liar. Boy did his ears ring.

[Sue Light]

They're destroyed. Different health authorities have different timescales, but most are binned five to eight years after death, except for children, whose are kept for a longer period - up to twenty-five years after death. Computerised records will have some effect on this - GP records, now held on computer, are not deleted from systems, so those might be subject to different rules in the future.

Sue

[Guest]

It doesn't matter whether the records are computerised or not. As they contain personal data (actually Sensitive Personal Data) they are subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 and must not be kept for any longer than they are actually required.

The length of time might vary depending on the content - e.g. where information might help in prevention of disease in future (but it may may well be kept in a depersonalised form) and there might be specific times laid down by other legislation. Any difference in timescales between health authorities must be in compliance with the legislation.

Access to the records of deceased persons is also controlled by legislation - the Access to Health Records Act 1990. Under that act you can only apply for the records of a deceased person if you: are their personal representative, are their executor, are their personal administrator or have a claim resulting from their death.

Graham